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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163814">Skin Deep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129'>csi_sanders1129</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haven (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU ending, Comfortember 2020, Guilt, History, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Lane, Scars, injuries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:41:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,315</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163814</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is an inventorying of scars.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Comfortember 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Skin Deep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Comfortember 2020, Prompt: Memory Lane.  AU Ending where Duke lives and Audrey doesn’t come back as Paige (mostly because I didn’t know all the details of how it ended when I wrote this). Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I don't really know what it's from," Nathan admits, trying to catch sight of the particular scar Duke had pointed out. It's just below his left shoulder blade, and for the life of him, he can't remember which of the many near-death experiences he's endured had caused it. "That's the case with a lot of them, you know. They don't really have stories, they're just... there."</p>
<p>That's not the case with all of them, of course.</p>
<p>There's one or two from before the troubles hit that first time – the lingering traces of stupid, barely there, kid wounds. There are a few he got in the time between the troubles, when he could feel, and those he knows well enough. Those are mostly stupid ones, too – gashed his leg open on a camping trip with his dad and got a jagged scar up his calf; let a suspect get the upper hand early on in his cop career and took a hit with a knife that left a line down the length of his forearm. And then there's the more serious ones. He knows that the thin straight lines on his arm are from the surgery that repaired his wildly broken arm back when he was seven. He knows that the two light starbursts just left of center on his chest are from when Arla, wearing Tommy's face, shot him, the shots that killed him. Some, though, he can't quite place. Can't remember which bullet wound is from which event, and he could never really keep track of the origins of whatever scratch or bruise had appeared, could only guess based on the color of the bruise, how scabbed over the cuts were.</p>
<p>Duke fixes him with a look that should probably piss him off - he's never liked people feeling sorry for him because of his trouble, and Duke has pretty much never been guilty of that, usually the opposite is true – Nathan's pretty sure there are the faint traces of tack marks on his back that would attest to that.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"Seriously?"</p>
<p>"What!?"</p>
<p>"I know you couldn't feel it when you got shot, but shouldn't you at least remember being in the hospital?"</p>
<p>Nathan shrugs, "I've been in the hospital a lot."</p>
<p>"That one," he points, and Nathan registers the feel of a finger brushing over the skin of his bare back, as Duke gets distracted from cleaning up his newest wound – a completely non-trouble related injury, caused by a belligerent drunk with a broken beer bottle, "is from the barn. Or, well, Jordan, but still," he says, and Nathan shivers at Duke's light touch moving over the sensitive scarred-over skin.</p>
<p>That explains why he <em>doesn't </em>remember that wound all that well, though – he hadn't been in the best headspace after the showdown at the barn, thinking he'd lost Audrey and Duke all in one fell swoop, combined with worsening troubles and the wrath of the Guard. He'd barely been in the hospital at all before he'd checked himself out in favor of desperately trying to fix things.</p>
<p>"And this one," Duke says, moving on to another old wound, not too far from the last one, and presses his lips to it. This one he knows, because it has a matching entrance wound on his chest. He isn't surprised Duke knows it either; he'd patched it up for him, after all, "is from Mara, after... after Jennifer died."</p>
<p>"Glad you're keeping track," Nathan teases.</p>
<p>"Someone has to," Duke counters. He trails a finger along a thin line of a scar on Nathan's right shoulder, draws a shudder out of him. "I think you got this one your first case with Audrey, the weather trouble. That scummy guy, Ted, shot you?"</p>
<p>"Yeah," he agrees, turns to face the other man. "You know, two can play at this game. Off with the shirt."</p>
<p>"Bossy," he says, but does as told, peeling off multiple layers until Nathan can get his hands on bare skin.</p>
<p>Nathan takes a moment, eyes flicking over Duke's chest in search of familiar scars, over the tattoos scattered over his arms.</p>
<p>Duke, however, has somehow managed to escape a lifetime of all the shit Haven could possibly throw at him remarkably unscathed. While he's had more than his fair share of battles, more than his fair share of fatal or near fatal injuries, he bears significantly less evidence of them compared to Nathan. There have been a lot of beatings and tasings and injuries, a lot of trouble related nonsense (agings and de-agings, time travel and body swapping), but nothing that had really left scars. There are a few, though. He brushes his thumb over the spot on Duke's collarbone where there's a pale, half-moon shaped mark. "I gave you this one," he says, absently wondering just how many small scars he left on Duke's body in all their fights over the years, "when you first came back to Haven, when you conned me into that fishing trip."</p>
<p>"I still maintain that I actually did want to patch things up with you, the smuggling was an unforeseen side effect," the other man argues.</p>
<p>Nathan doesn't care about that anymore, though. Duke's not the same person he was then – Nathan's not the same person he was then, either. He continues his inventorying, grabs Duke's hand and traces the faint line of a cut on his palm he gained when he was brainwashed into acting like a pirate. "Arr, matey," he jokes, earns a fond, if exasperated, groan from Duke for his trouble. "And I know there's one here," Nathan says, pressing a hand against Duke's jean-clad thigh, perhaps a bit higher than is technically accurate, over the scar marking where Jennifer stabbed him while he was possessed by a troubled person.</p>
<p>Duke shifts a little closer, and the hand on his leg shifts higher, "you are playing dirty, I'll have you know," he whispers, before he pulls Nathan into a kiss, wrangles Nathan into settling on top of him in his bed on the <em>Cape Rouge</em>. For the moment, the scars are forgotten in favor of desperate touches and wandering hands.</p>
<p>But, after…</p>
<p>Nathan's gaze lands on Duke's neck, currently marked with several developing suction bruises, but that's not what he's thinking of. No, it's the bruises that have faded away, the scars that never were that are on his mind right now.</p>
<p>There is no physical evidence of the toll the Crocker curse took on Duke, or the weight of the lives he took to help end the most dangerous troubles only for generations of troubled blood to turn him into a ticking time bomb. He'd had to resist the urge to give into the power with no one (Nathan included) believing he would. He'd had to kill his own brother when the power went to Wade's head. He'd had to endure the pain of the troubles all trying to get free of him, had to try to figure out which of them it would be safest to release to keep from taking out the whole town. He'd had to sacrifice himself so that Croatoan wouldn't be able to win.</p>
<p>There is no evidence of the tattooed arm Nathan had wrapped around Duke's neck in the station that day, or of the hand he'd held over his mouth and nose until the other man stopped moving, breathing, living. There's no evidence of the desperate CPR he'd done afterward, once Duke was free of his trouble and all the troubles trapped within him. Nathan almost wishes there was.</p>
<p>His hand settles there now, loosely wrapped around Duke's throat. "Your scars are deeper."</p>
<p>Duke is unconcerned by the hand on his neck. Nathan's fingers don't tighten, but his thumb slides up, grazing along Duke's jawline, over his lips. Duke pulls him into another kiss, long and slow and content, "That's not one of them, not anymore."</p>
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